Case Study: Caring for Urban, American Indian, Gay, or Lesbian Youth at Risk for Suicide

Abstract

Larry, a newly graduated baccalaureate-prepared nurse, has just moved to the Midwest from the upper northern United States (US). Being part Lakota Indian, he is interested in working with tribes different from his own and knows Oklahoma has the largest American Indian (AI) population of any state in the United States. His career plan is to get as much experience as possible working for tribal clinics, learning about, and caring for AI suicide victims in urban settings. He is aware of several suicides on his reservation as he was growing up, but no one talked much about them, so neither did he. Larry then plans to go to graduate school to become a psych-mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP) and return to the Dakotas to work with his people to help reduce psych-mental health disparities. For this reason, he has just accepted a new position with the Indian Health Service (IHS) at the Oklahoma City Tribal Clinic in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. This will be a new experience for Larry, not living on a reservation and working in an urban setting.